Conservative mayor Lord Houchen called for “civility” in the upcoming Tory leadership contest, shortly after Suella Braverman’s made some eyebrow-raising comments about the party’s direction.
The former home secretary and current backbencher – who is expected to run as Conservative leader – criticised people who lean further to centre over the weekend.
She told The Telegraph: “If we don’t recover the votes we deliberately, and arrogantly, spurned, we will turn the Conservative Party into the 21st Century version of the 20th Century Liberal Party.
“We can do better than being a collection of fanatical, irrelevant, centrist cranks, who make it our business to insult our should-be voters for not being as smug and self-righteous as we are.”
Asked what he made of these comments on Sky News on Sunday, Tees Valley Mayor Houchen said the Tory party leadership should not be based on the past, but the future.
He also there should not be any “blue-on-blue attacks”.
Houchen added: “If we want to spend the next two, three, four, five months fighting with each other that goes to the cause of the election defeat just two weeks ago.
“And I would implore Suella, as well as every other leadership contender, to conduct this leadership contest with civility. Let’s come together and let’s offer a positive option to the country.”
Houchen, the only Conservative metro mayor left in the north of England, said it’s clear from the election results “we did let people down”.
He said voters “want a party that isn’t going to fight like cats in a sack”, adding that the electorate thought the Tories cared more about “in-fighting and positioning within the Conservative Party and within the government than caring about our country”.
The mayor suggested any future Tory leader needs to rule out working with Reform too, as they are a “symptom not a cause” of the problem.
But Braverman called for a deal with the populist party only a few weeks ago.
Speaking to GB News earlier this month, she said there was “only room for one Conservative Party on the right of British politics”.
The backbencher said: “There’s very little I disagree with when it comes to Nigel Farage and I met thousands of people throughout this campaign, and many, many people said to me, I’m a lifelong Tory voter, but I’m going to vote Reform.”
“They are feeling betrayed. They feel let down. They feel politically homeless because of our failures,” she added.
“So we have to address the issue of Reform. I’m not really interested in the form of what that takes, but we need to find an accommodation with Reform, with Nigel Farage, so that we can take the fight to Labour and win the next election.”